The Baby Diaries

Me: I see. Thanks, Doctor.

Dr Bedford: [smiling] You’ll be fine.

She is a great doctor. Maybe we’ll bond over our babies and become the best of friends, and we’ll bring our kids up together and have loads of hilarious misadventures as a gang. But maybe I won’t mention that yet. We’ll just see how it goes.

Some things that, with hindsight, were possibly caused by me being pregnant:

1 Sleeping fourteen-hour nights for two whole weeks

2 On three separate occasions, eating Thom’s portion of dinner when he was fifteen minutes late home

3 Crying uncontrollably during a debate with Thom about funding cuts hitting vulnerable women and children

4 Crying uncontrollably at an old Gilmore Girls episode

5 Crying uncontrollably at a bread advert on TV

6 Being sick in my mouth when Alice brought me coffee at work two mornings in a row, after which she stopped doing it

7 Suddenly finding none of my bras fit properly

8 Going off booze (I thought that was odd)

9 Only wanting oranges for breakfast for an entire week

10 Finding Mum even more annoying than usual

Yes, I may have been ignoring some major clues there. But in my defence: I’ve had other things on my mind. Dad’s officially recovered from his heart attack, but I still worry about him. He retired early and happily from a boring senior job at a law firm years ago, and became a Jewellery Making teacher at the local college, to our surprise, all in an attempt to slow his life down and keep himself well. But he was never in one of the high-risk groups before the heart attack, which makes it harder to predict how he’ll fare over the next five, ten or twenty years. I have to admit: every time the phone rings and it’s Mum, my hearts dips. Is something wrong? But it never is (if you discount the neighbour’s noisy driveway, Gillian from her old work’s daughter’s new house, plastic bags, the price of petrol, the shoes she only bought last summer but are already falling apart) and I should be returning to pre-heart attack levels of stress. But I’m not. Every time she reports Dad’s got a cold, headache, or – heaven forbid – episode of heartburn, my adrenaline levels go through the roof. And Mum seems worse than usual at the moment – panicking, worrying, even forgetful. So I’ve been distracted. But how were we going to tell them about this baby? Would they like it? Would they think it was too fast?

At work, before Tony did his Business Strategy Sabbatical Disappearing Act™ he’d been on my case about my new position, pushing me to bring in some money to Polka Dot with my own books. I know his mother Pamela is on my side, since she actually forced him to honour the promotion he’d offered me, but she’s barely around. And Jacki Jones, the actress/popstar whose bestselling wedding book originally got me the promotion, is busy going through a very painful divorce, but Tony had still been nagging me to find out if there’s a second book in her. She signed up for a two-book deal, as Tony obviously imagined there’d be babies soon enough, but the state she’s in at the moment, I can’t bring myself to ask. We still see each other regularly: once a month we pick a bar and spend an evening laughing at the terrible coverage her divorce is getting. Our favourite so far is the story that she’s divorcing her husband for Pedro, one of her best friends and horrific ego-ridden monster-slash-celebrity photographer who snapped our wedding at Jacki’s incredibly kind request (and God knows how much of her own money). He’s truly awful (to me, anyway, accusing me of being a social climber at Jacki’s cursed wedding), but he is just her friend, and I believe he cares about her. She laughs at these dreadful stories, and the headlines illustrated with pap-snaps of her looking ‘tired’, ‘drawn’ and ‘emotional’, but she’s so sad. The more I know Jacki, the more I love her, and it’s awful to see this funny, smart, ambitious person being crushed just a little more every day. So I don’t know where I’m going to get that money-spinner.

For now, I’ve got the Four Authors of the Apocalypse to be dealing with.

Hilary Taylor – producer of Aga sagas. I’ve had brief dealings with her before, when Tony was trying to poach her from her last publisher. He won her over with a glossy presentation and proposed rejackets for her back catalogue, but we all suspect this is going to be one of those terrible triumphs of sales figures over blind optimism: she hasn’t sold well for years, and no amount of extra laminate on the jacket is likely to change anything about that. Favourite fact: In our email correspondence, she was unbelievably bitter and rude about her then-current publisher. Can’t wait until we receive that treatment too.

Matthew Holt – a brand-new author, of truly dire Scandi-crime. I have a horrible suspicion that he’s been no nearer to north-eastern Europe than watching Eurovision, but the crowbarred-in geographical references are the least of my complaints. His book is really, truly, very bad, but my only hope is that people will assume they’re genuinely Scandinavian and blame the translator. Favourite fact: Matthew Holt believes that you can walk directly from Denmark to Norway.

Jennifer Luck – another brand-new name, this time of trashy, shopping-and-handsome-bosses fiction. Magically inspired by completely current cultural reference point Sex and the City, she’s given us four books, all of which we’ve signed up: Nude in New York, Filthy in Finland, Hot in Hong Kong, and my personal favourite, Bonking in Brazil. Favourite fact: These books make me wish I’d never learnt to read.

Stuart Winton – a complete unknown. The manuscript I have is a very ropy erotica novel set in the eighties, under the pseudonym Tara Towne. But I can’t find any details on our systems to even contact Stuart, nor can I find any evidence of the contract. Favourite fact: This may be an elaborate prank Carol is playing on the rest of the office. I can’t even begin to say how unlikely this is.

And all of these I’m responsible for making sure they’re insanely successful.

TO DO:

Find out if it’s possible to change my career before the baby is born

Also: Eat some fruit

Don’t take up horse-riding, cross-country skiing or trampolining

Stop looking up ‘dangerous pregnancy activities’ online

November 4th

Alice has been great over the last few months. She had to suffer my wedding ups and downs; then a week of Tony pacing the office, sweating profusely and muttering, ‘When is she back?’ like I’d just nipped out for the antidote to his snakebite, so desperate was he to go on his ridiculous sabbatical. And on my return from our brief Paris honeymoon, she had to witness slight hysteria on my part as I realised Tony’s five-minute meeting with me was the only handover I’d be getting before he vanished for who-knows-how-long.

Alice is also still having to live with her ‘boyfriend’ despite the fact that everyone besides her family knows she’s gay. She does the work of three people here (a normal situation for publishing) while always keeping a smile on her face. As I thought over and over about breaking the news to my colleagues, I wondered for the first time in ages how she actually is, so took her out for drinks this evening, at our favourite little bar round the corner.

Alice: What’s this for? What are you up to?

Me: I’m not up to anything!

Alice: Are you about to set me up with someone? Is there a beautiful woman just waiting to spend the evening being entertained by me somewhere in this bar?

Me: Only me, I’m afraid. What’s your poison?

Alice: No one actually says that. ‘What’s your poison?’ What are you up to?

Me: Alice! Fine: it’s my round.

Alice: [browsing the menu] I … will have … a Slutty Horse, please.

Me: One Slutty Horse coming up, Madam. [to the barman] One Slutty Horse, one … Elderflower Handshake, please.

Alice: Are you making me drink alone?

Me: Oh no, I’m so sorry – I’m on these antibiotics –

Alice: [mouth agape]

Me: What?

Alice: [whispering] You’ve been married three months.

Me: [nervous] What?

Alice: [shakes head]

Me: What?

Alice: Kiki, Kiki, Kiki …

Me: Alice!

Alice: Don’t make me say it, Kiki.

[silence]

Me: Alice, please don’t tell anyone. It wasn’t even supposed to happen – we didn’t even mean it – but we did mean it, but only for one night, and we were drunk, and it just – please, you please mustn’t tell anyone, [almost sobbing] please.

Alice: Kiki, does this face look like it tells secrets?

We talked for a long time. We talked about how I was feeling, and how Thom was feeling, and how Tony and Pamela might take it, and what the maternity package may or may not be at Polka Dot (for some reason we haven’t had anyone go on maternity leave while we’ve been there). And some more about how I was feeling. She also told me, after her fourth Slutty Horse, that everyone knowing about Norman and Carol’s office romance doesn’t seem to have quenched their passion – she caught them snogging in Carol’s office after work the other evening. At the end of the night, as we stumbled to the tube station and down to our platforms (Alice stumbling after taking on all the Slutty Horses, me stumbling after taking on Alice), I realised we still hadn’t talked about how Alice was. ‘Plus ça change, my darling,’ she smiled, as I put her on her train home. Is she OK?

TO DO:

Start carrying around a hipflask filled with apple juice, for when someone next needs to see me drinking

Check Alice is OK tomorrow

November 9th

Body. Didn’t we have a deal? Didn’t we agree that enough was enough? That you would stop this nonsense? Yes, it’s probably hard work growing another human being, but do you need to make such a fuss? Women do it all over the world. Every day. And they’ve done it since before even my mum was born. So can you just stop? Please?

The last few days, the mild queasiness I’ve had on and off the last month or two has burst into something far worse. I just feel rotten. Tired, aching, and sick, sick, sick. It just doesn’t let up. And I don’t want to be one of those frail Victorian pregnants, hobbled by confinement and sent to rest until the baby is ready to go to boarding school, but I just can’t function like this. It ambushes me at moments throughout the day, but the worst thing – the meanest trick in the whole nausea book – is that this isn’t morning sickness. Oh no. In the morning, I wake feeling perky and wholesome, hoping that this might be the day this sickness has slung its hook. So I enjoy a good breakfast with Thom, and we talk, and we make plans, and behave like civilised, happy humans. Then at work, I might feel a bit odd, but it’s OK, I just need to get on with work. By lunchtime, my mouth tastes gross, and nothing seems that tempting, but I can normally find something to fill the gaping, ever-increasing black hole in my appetite (because, of course! – it wouldn’t be truly funny unless this nausea coincided with a huge increase in appetite!) and I’ll be fine for a few hours. If I get hungry in the afternoon, I’ve stocked my desk with fruit and nuts, plus a huge bottle of water. So I just about make it through the day. I start feeling hopeful. Maybe Thom and I can have a conversation tonight! Maybe I can make him dinner, to thank him for all his recent kindness and consideration! Perhaps we can even do some of that stuff we’re probably contractually obliged to do, post-wedding ceremony! That would be great! But even as I’m waving goodbye to everyone, I can feel it starting. My mouth-taste is switching from weird to bitter, from Status Normal to What The Hell Is Going On Here? By the time I’ve got a seat on the tube, I’m desperately praying that no one near me smells of anything, or, heaven forbid, dares to eat anything. And by the time Thom and I meet at home, all I can do is lie down, slipping tiny slivers of whatever arbitrary foodstuff I can handle that day into my mouth. I am not fun company right now.

November 10th

I’m sure morning sickness is supposed to fade around now, not get worse every day. This is something hatching in my brain and stomach, where Thom can’t even say particular foods to me without bile pooling in my mouth until I have to go and lie with my head on a really cold pillow, sipping water like an idiot. The first night I had this, Thom was thrown.

Thom: What’s … wrong with you?

Me: I don’t know. That morning sickness I was so delighted to have missed? I think it found me.

Thom: It’s seven pm.

Me: Thank you. I’ll just swallow your watch to let my stomach know and we should have this sorted in two seconds.

Thom: Sarcasm? This does sound serious. [sitting tentatively next to me on the bed]

Me: OH GOD don’t lean on me.

Thom: [leaping up] OK, no problem. Is there anything you can stomach eating?

Me: What have we got?

Thom: Um … pasta? Salad?

Me: [gulping] Nonotpastatalkaboutsomethingelse –

Thom: What would you like? Name it, and I’ll find it.

Me: Mm … Maybe … Do we have any salt and vinegar crisps? And a melon?

Thom: You’re depraved.

Me: I’m sure I’ll feel alright tomorrow. I’m just tired. Tomorrow I’ll be back to eating –

Thom: Don’t. Don’t say anything. I can’t risk you being sick on our bed. I’ll go and fetch your gourmet feast, then we sleep.

Me: Deal. Thank you.

And it’s just got worse since then. I avoid being sick all day, but what I can’t do is stop the feeling that I want to be sick, pretty much all the time now. I can’t tell you how angry it makes me to be reduced to that movie pregnant cliché, and to feel so bad with no purpose. This isn’t something that needs medicating – it’s just my body launching a full-on civil war. Well, Body, I shan’t forget this. You just remember that. This isn’t over.

November 11th

Christ, I still feel so terrible. The fact that there are some women who feel like this every day of their nine months I think is a pretty reasonable explanation for only children. I just about manage to stay upright at work, but I come home and just lie, with a downturned mouth, either on the bed or the sofa and try not to smell the food Thom is doing his damndest to cook and eat in a secretive manner. Then I eat as many mouthfuls of cornflakes and cold, cold milk as I can before my rebellious stomach sends reinforcements and the refuelling party is over. The enemy has realised my plan and all I can do is retreat to the sofa again, trying not to groan out loud and wishing so very, very hard that the feeling of being on a whirling roundabout would stop. Any time now. Like, now. Or now. Or now?

I’m sorry to feel so sorry for myself. As long as this baby is growing, and healthy, and all that jazz that pregnants say to one another like a mantra, then I can stomach this stomach.

Unless I wake up tomorrow and it’s still like this. In which case, I will not be happy.

OK, I can do this. Millions of people – women, I suppose; millions of women – get pregnant every day, and they just get on with it, don’t they? I mean: there will be frightened girls and women who don’t want their babies and don’t know what to do, and women who want babies so much and can’t have them, and here I am, happily married (for less than three months) with a supportive husband and family, so what am I worried about?

Yet the reality of this pregnancy rattles around my head. I can actually hear it: rattle rattle rattle, all the time. Are these sound-effect thoughts also a symptom of pregnancy? I’m delighted, then I’m terrified. I think of the fun we shall have with our own child, then I think of my body, and my social life, and – oh GOD – my career. Tony’s hardly a dream boss, but I love Polka Dot. What am I supposed to do? I’ve had this new position for even less time than I’ve been married, and I’ve got to somehow get a carrier pigeon to Tony in distant lands to let him know that he took a punt on me and it backfired? How am I going to face any of them? And Pamela too! She championed me against her son, and now I’m dragging the Polka Dot offices back sixty years, into the dark days when young women married, bred and vanished into a life of baking and school fêtes. Not that that’s even what I want – I don’t want to watch my career dissolve while I stay in the kitchen, weeping while my kids pelt me with Lego. But that’s definitely the assumption Pamela and Tony will make.

But then I get excited again. A baby, with Thom. Not that I even like babies – I really don’t, not at all – but it’s exciting, to be doing something so different, so wonderful, so creative, and to have this massive responsibility and to be sharing it with Thom. What an honour. This is the most wonderful thing. And then I think: a baby. Jesus. Not a baby Jesus, but a baby nonetheless. And one that I imagine will do a hell of a lot more crying than the one we have to thank for Christmas. How the hell are we going to cope with that?

And then the nausea comes back.

We spent tonight watching some belated fireworks from a pub window with Jim (a session musician and source of great kindness, and my oldest friend besides Eve) and Poppy, the girl he brought to our wedding and who seems like a keeper. I sat sipping an apple juice (‘Sorry, I’ve been feeling rough all week’) and trying to steady my stomach and absorb the letter from Dr Bedford this morning, confirming the date for the twelve-week scan. Thom’s got permission from school to go in late, and I’ll tell Polka I’m editing from home that day. I can’t stop thinking about it. Something about that scan will make it real, rather than just a distant To Do. And I’m sure it’s going to be much harder to keep up my heroin habit afterwards. Joke.

TO DO:

Start reading any of those pamphlets Dr Bedford gave me

November 14th

I got a letter today from the local team of midwives. Ah, the things you never thought you’d find out: who even knew there was a local team of midwives? A team sounds good, though. Like a team of crime-fighters. I hope they have cool uniforms, at least. The letter said that I had an appointment with them next week at the local hospital, and came wrapped around six different leaflets – what I should be eating, how I should be feeling, what’s going to be taken from me (blood and urine) and what’s going to be given (more information). I find it’s most helpful to write the appointment in my diary, tuck the whole thing safe at the back of my drawer, and just not think about it again. Note: this may not work when the actual baby is born.

Mum came over tonight to drop off some photos from our wedding (oh, how recent that seemed) and I thought she’d guess instantly when I was lying on the sofa, grey-faced and sipping water with a lemon in.

Mum: Hello darling, are you ill?

Me: My stomach. I think it’s a bug.

Mum: Oh, that’s awful. Have you had some plain toast?

Me: [trying not to retch at the thought] No, I don’t really …

Mum: Well, it’s the best thing for you.

Me: I know, but it’s not what my stomach wants right now.

Mum: Kiki, I think you’re being very silly; a nice piece of dry toast is exactly the kind of thing you should be eating if you want to feel any better. Is it something going round?

Me: [burping, a precursor to vomiting]

Thom: She’s been a bit sick all day, it might be better if we let her rest for a while.

Mum: [voice almost cracking] You’re being ridiculous! If you don’t want to feel better –

Thom: I’ll get her some toast later. I think she’s just a bit tired at the moment.

Mum: [grumpily] Well I shan’t kiss you, in case it’s catching and I give it to your father.

Thom: [sniggering]

Me: [faintly] Alright Mum. Thanks for the photos.

Mum: That’s perfectly alright. See you soon!

And she was gone. We both felt such relief, even though she is incredibly kind (sometimes) and did do a huge amount towards saving our wedding from disaster: but her attentions can be a little much, and if she’d kept saying the word toast I would definitely have been sick in front of her. And she seemed even more tense than usual – surely she wouldn’t care that much about my toast intake normally? Plus, we definitely don’t want to tell anyone until we’ve had the first scan. It still doesn’t seem real.

November 15th

Ah, crazy hormones. Yesterday I got home from work and, in a brief respite from nausea, pounced on Thom, then fell straight to sleep to a night of the filthiest dreams I have ever had. I can’t even name some of the people who featured for fear of this diary ever falling into the wrong hands, but it was … well, I’m not surprised I was more tired this morning than when I went to bed.

November 16th

Thom remembered the Diary today – last Christmas he’d given me a diary for the year, with trips and treats every month. Last month he’d dug me out a perfect Marion Ravenwood costume (wicker-basket-Marion, not Nazi-tent-Marion) for Halloween, and in return I found him a Captain Sharpe costume (yes, I know, Thom Sharpe, Captain Sharpe, I am exactly that imaginative); the combination of which resulted in us arriving slightly late, but very cheerful, to the party.

This month, the treat was simply Tickets. November seemed so far off when Thom arranged it all last Christmas that he couldn’t book anything, leaving it instead up to our whims of the moment. Right now, I didn’t know what I wanted – a gig? Theatre? A film? An exhibition? That is, until Thom suggested a swap.

Thom: You don’t have to go for this. But you know you’re only allowed the treat within the month – there are no rollovers.

Me: Where was this written down?

Thom: [taps side of his head] So, here’s your alternative. I go out, right now, and get you six ice-cold bottles of ginger beer, a jumbo bag of salted vegetable crisps, aaaand … [holding up his hands]

Me: A can – no, make it two; two cans of corned beef.

Thom: [shuddering] Whatever milady requires. So what do you say? Is it a swap?

We agreed to the swap, as I’m in no fit state to be going anywhere at the moment. But I did enjoy my strange, protein-heavy meal this evening immensely.

November 17th

Drinks with Eve tonight, my oldest, most difficult, but potentially-most-reformed friend (since meeting wonderful baker Mike, she’s developed a taste for not being a terrible human). Or rather, it was supposed to be drinks, but I changed it to a trip to the Wellcome Collection as I couldn’t face Eve giving me suspicious side-eyes when I wasn’t drinking. So we met outside, hugged, and headed in.

Me: [narrowing eyes at her, suspicious] You look very well.

Eve: [narrowing eyes too] So do you.

Me: My goodness, is Mike still making you incredibly happy? Goodness. He is, isn’t he? You love him.

Eve: I might. Do you know what it is, though? I just don’t see good-looking men anymore.

Me: Maybe it’s because you’re so in love.

Eve: [mock-concerned] No, I think my eyesight’s getting worse. I really need to see a doctor.

Me: Optician. And I don’t imagine they’ll be able to help with what you’ve got.

Eve: Syphilis?

Me: Wow. You old romantic.